lying down, fighting, eating, drinking, or in any other circumstance, however foreign or repugnant to speed and activity.  Virgil’s common epithet to AEneas, is ‘Pius’ or ‘Pater.’  I have therefore considered,” said he, “what passage there is in any of his hero’s actions, where either of these appellations would have been most improper, to see if I could catch him at the same fault with Homer:  and this, I think, is his meeting with Dido in the cave, where Pius AEneas would have been absurd, and Pater AEneas a burlesque:  the poet has therefore wisely dropped them both for Dux Trojanus,

    “Speluncam Dido dux et Trojanus eandem Devenient;[128]

which he has repeated twice in Juno’s speech, and his own narration:  for he very well knew a loose action might be consistent enough with the usual manners of a soldier, though it became neither the chastity of a pious man, nor the gravity of the father of a people.”

Grecian Coffee-house, April 22.

While other parts of the town are amused with the present actions, we generally spend the evening at this table in inquiries into antiquity, and think anything news which gives us new knowledge.  Thus we are making a very pleasant entertainment to ourselves, in putting the actions of Homer’s “Iliad” into an exact journal.

This poem is introduced by Chryses, King of Chryseis, and priest of Apollo, who comes to re-demand his daughter, who was carried off at the taking of that city, and given to Agamemnon for his part of the booty.  The refusal he received enrages Apollo, who for nine days showered down darts upon them, which occasioned the pestilence.

The tenth day Achilles assembles the council, and encourages Chalcas to speak for the surrender of Chryseis to appease Apollo.  Agamemnon and Achilles storm at one another, notwithstanding which Agamemnon will not release his prisoner, unless he has Briseis in her stead.  After long contestations, wherein Agamemnon gives a glorious character of Achilles’ valour, he determines to restore Briseis to her father, and sends two heralds to fetch away Chryseis from Achilles, who abandons himself to sorrow and despair.  His mother Thetis came to comfort him under his affliction, and promises to represent his sorrowful lamentations to Jupiter; but he could not attend it; for the evening before, he had appointed to divert himself for two days beyond the seas with the harmless AEthiopians.

It was the twenty-first day after Chryseis’ arrival to the camp, that Thetis went very early to demand an audience of Jupiter.  The means he uses to satisfy her were, to persuade the Greeks to attack the Trojans; that so they might perceive the consequence of condemning Achilles and the miseries they suffer if he does not head them.  The next night he orders Agamemnon, in a dream, to attack them; who was deceived with the hopes of obtaining a victory, and also taking the city, without sharing the honour with Achilles.